A novel combining scheme for slowly fading diversity branches with a common frequency offset

We propose a coherent combining scheme for an integrated receiver structure for slowly fading multibranch channels with a common carrier frequency offset. The decision-directed channel phase estimation is done with a Kalman filter. We show that the so-called Kalman phase tracking (KPT) BPSK receiver functions well in a slowly fading environment. Best performance is achieved with the aid of a few periodically inserted pilot symbols. The KPT is also shown to cope well with frequency offsets